3 Emily Dickinson first editions are documented on this shelf, from Poems by Emily Dickinson (First Series) (1890) to Poems: Third Series (1896). Each linked guide gives the points of issue that separate a true first printing of that Emily Dickinson title from later printings and book-club copies — the publisher and year to expect, the number-line or edition-statement conventions, and the tells that show up in online listings.
Identification only, per the house rule: no prices and no appraisals here. Checking a Emily Dickinson copy in hand? Type the title into the First-Edition Checker or photograph the copyright page with Snap & Sort.
- Poems by Emily Dickinson (First Series) — 1890 · Roberts BrothersDickinson's first book and first posthumous collection. First edition, first printing: 'Roberts Brothers, 1890' on the title page, an edition of only about 500 copies, with the gilt-and-silver Indian-pipe (Monotropa) binding design by Mabel Loomis Todd, top edge gilt (Myerson A.1.1). The cloth occurs in more than one color (gray/white and olive-decorated variants) with NO established binding priority. A known…. US true first, 1890, Roberts Brothers, Boston (Dickinson published almost nothing in life). The title page reads 1890; do not confuse this with the Second Series (1891). Printings followed quickly. The genuine first has the 1890 imprint and the Indian-pipe binding; the various binding colors carry no priority. Later printings and the separate Second Series (1891) and Third Series (1896) volumes are not the first. The first is distinguished by the 1890 Roberts Brothers imprint and the Myerson A.1.1 binding, not by any single binding color.
- Poems: Second Series — 1891 · Roberts BrothersSecond of three nineteenth-century posthumous Dickinson volumes issued by Roberts Brothers, following Poems (1890) and preceding Poems: Third Series (1896); this Second Series was edited by Thomas Wentworth Higginson and Mabel Loomis Todd, printed in an edition of 960 copies, and contains 166 poems, including a preliminary facsimile reproduction of the manuscript poem "Renunciation." Two bindings are recognized…. The first printing sold out almost immediately and Roberts Brothers issued further printings; a second-printing copy can be identified by text leaves on laid paper with horizontal chain marks and by a title page dated "Roberts Brothers 1892" rather than 1891, and the second impression also silently corrects six textual errors present in the first.
- Poems: Third Series — 1896 · Roberts BrothersThird and final nineteenth-century posthumous gathering, edited by Mabel Loomis Todd, printed in an edition of 1,000 copies. The first printing, dated April 1896, is distinguished from a second printing issued the same year in September 1896; reference works cite Myerson A4.1a and BAL 4661 for the first printing. Binding variants exist with no firm priority established: publisher's gray-green cloth over beveled…. Because a second printing followed within the same calendar year, a "1896" title-page date alone does not guarantee the first printing; the April-versus-September points (and the presence of the bound-in ribbon marker) should be checked against a Dickinson bibliography such as Myerson.
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